In the heart of Lutyens' Delhi sits Jehangir Rangoonwalla, enlightened dispenser of tea, wisdom, and second-hand books. Among his customers are Brighu, a postmodern Ibn Batuta looking for obscure collectibles and a love life; Digital Dutta who lives mostly in his head, torn between Karl Marx and an H1-B visa; and the newly-married Shintu, looking for the ultimate aphrodisiac in the seedy by-lanes of old Delhi. Played out in the corridors of Connaught Place and Calcutta, the story captures the alienation and fragmented reality of urban life through an imaginative alchemy of text and image.

How does history end? -- The Red Queen -- Will to power -- Economics outside the corridor -- Allegory of good government -- The European scissors -- Mandate of Heaven -- Broken Red Queen -- Devil in the details -- What's the matter with Ferguson? -- The paper leviathan -- Wahhab's children -- Red Queen out of control -- Into the corridor -- Living with the leviathan.

"In Up the Infinite Corridor, Fred Hapgood explores the mental landscape of engineering a style of thought, a mode of operation, a particular form of creativity that increasingly defines the trajectory of modern life." "With the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as his point of reference, Hapgood traces the emergence of the profession from its mud-on-the-boots days preoccupied with canals and roads to its present absorption with cyber-space and micromachines. He also shows the evolution in how engineers are trained, from the apprentice working alongside the older man, to "build and test," to the postwar emergence of engineering science and its focus on developing general principles about the natural behavior of artifacts." "But it is when Hapgood explores a selection of research projects currently going on at the Institute that he actually takes us inside the process, bringing to life the struggle to design an artificial human knee that in every way mimics nature, the creation of all automated navigational system for cars, the attempt to infuse a piece of silicon with the capacity for vision, the construction of a human-powered airplane, and the development of robot mice for maze racing in international competition. In so doing, Hapgood gives us a glimpse into an alternate universe he calls "solution space," the black box of possibilities which the engineer moves inside, searching along its various pathways, confronting key to true innovation." "MIT is a rich culture that has always had its bizarre projects and its even more bizarre personalities, and Hapgood guides us through its history, the folkways and legends of undergraduate life, the twisted sense of humor emerging from the pressures and insecurities of a place in which everyone has the intellectual accelerator wired to the floor. The engineering sensibility that emerges is nothing like the dry "nuts and bolts" cliche. Rather it is an ethos based on reverence for "the fitness of things," the existential pleasure of connecting with the properties of nature. For as Hapgood points out, if scientists carry on a romance, engineers form a marriage and have progeny with nature, working within its confines day in and day out. The value system implied is one that sees our universe composed of elements whose behaviors matter to us intimately." "Hapgood's rich and insightful treatment shows engineering to be an enterprise surprisingly humane, even lyrical."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

An engaging and delightfully illustrated account of the impact of railroads on the American built environment and on American culture from the last decades of the nineteenth century to the 1930's.

We spend our lives moving through passages, hallways, corridors, and gangways, yet these channeling spaces do not feature in architectural histories, monographs, or guidebooks. They are overlooked, undervalued, and unregarded, seen as unlovely parts of a building’s infrastructure rather than architecture. This book is the first definitive history of the corridor, from its origins in country houses and utopian communities in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, through reformist Victorian prisons, hospitals, and asylums, to the “corridors of power,” bureaucratic labyrinths, and housing estates of the twentieth century. Taking in a wide range of sources, from architectural history to fiction, film, and TV, Corridors explores how the corridor went from a utopian ideal to a place of unease: the archetypal stuff of nightmares.

Panoramic, authentic, explosively dramatic—this is the breathtaking new series The First Americans, which began with Book I, Beyond The Sea Of Ice. Now the heroic great hunter Torka, his woman Lonit, and his adopted son Karana emerge from a land forbidden to all men, a land where mountains walk and spirits speak. Across the fierce glacial tundra Torka leads his people—survivors of a horrifying natural disaster—to a winter camp where many bands gather to hunt the great mammoth. There he and his followers encounter an evil more dangerous than the wild lands—the magic man called Navahlk, who vows cruel destruction of the bold hunter Torka. To survive they must draw upon the courage of one brave boy who will grow to manhood and see with his mind’s eye where the sun’s light has led them—to the dawn of man on the American continent.

The world is sick. The Forces of Chaos have energised the planet. Leaders, führers, duces, prophets, visionaries, gurus, and politicians are all at each others' throats. And Chaos leers over the broken body of Order. So Ryan freezes his family into suspended animation and sets off for the planet Munich 15040, five years distant. There he will re-establish Order in a New World - and create a happier, healthier, saner and more decent society with the ones he loves. But they are suspended. And they cannot talk. And he is alone in space. And he has been travelling for three years. And he will still be travelling two years hence, and he cannot see his destination, and he is ALONE and LOST and CRACKING UP...

Corridor Ecology presents guidelines that combine conservation science and practical experience for maintaining, enhancing, and creating connectivity between natural areas with an overarching goal of conserving biodiversity. It offers an objective, carefully interpreted review of the issues and is a one-of-a-kind resource for scientists, landscape architects, planners, land managers, decision-makers, and all those working to protect and restore landscapes and species diversity.

"The Florida Wildlife Corridor Expedition shows the world that beyond beaches and theme parks, the heart of Florida is still wild--and can still be saved. In 2012, four explorers enter the Everglades and, 100 days later, reach the Okefenokee Swamp in southern Georgia. They paddle, peddle and hike more than 1,000 miles up the spine of Florida to call attention to this remaining natural corridor so essential to the survival of wildlife and to the well-being of Florida's ever-growing population. Stunning photographs by Carlton Ward Jr and essays by fellow explorers bring the story to life in vivid detail. Travel with them to discover the rivers, swamps, prairies, springs and forests, along with private cattle ranches and timberlands, which unite to form the corridor. Learn about wide-ranging wildlife like the Florida black bear and Florida panther and meet the gladesmen, cowboys and other heroes who work to protect the corridor for us all. The Florida Wildlife Corridor project is a collaborative vision to connect remaining natural lands, waters, working farms and ranches from the Everglades to Georgia, protecting a functional ecological corridor for the health of people and wildlife. The Florida Wildlife Corridor Expedition, led by photographer Carlton Ward Jr, biologist Joe Guthrie, conservationist Mallory Lykes Dimmitt and filmmaker Elam Stoltzfus, was a 100 day, 1000 mile trek in early 2012 that explored the last remaining natural path through the length of the Florida peninsula. The journey will be featured in a film to debut nationally on Public Television in April, 2013" -- Amazon.com.

Brilliant and engagingly written, Why Nations Fail answers the question that has stumped the experts for centuries: Why are some nations rich and others poor, divided by wealth and poverty, health and sickness, food and famine? Is it culture, the weather, geography? Perhaps ignorance of what the right policies are? Simply, no. None of these factors is either definitive or destiny. Otherwise, how to explain why Botswana has become one of the fastest growing countries in the world, while other African nations, such as Zimbabwe, the Congo, and Sierra Leone, are mired in poverty and violence? Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson conclusively show that it is man-made political and economic institutions that underlie economic success (or lack of it). Korea, to take just one of their fascinating examples, is a remarkably homogeneous nation, yet the people of North Korea are among the poorest on earth while their brothers and sisters in South Korea are among the richest. The south forged a society that created incentives, rewarded innovation, and allowed everyone to participate in economic opportunities. The economic success thus spurred was sustained because the government became accountable and responsive to citizens and the great mass of people. Sadly, the people of the north have endured decades of famine, political repression, and very different economic institutions—with no end in sight. The differences between the Koreas is due to the politics that created these completely different institutional trajectories. Based on fifteen years of original research Acemoglu and Robinson marshall extraordinary historical evidence from the Roman Empire, the Mayan city-states, medieval Venice, the Soviet Union, Latin America, England, Europe, the United States, and Africa to build a new theory of political economy with great relevance for the big questions of today, including: - China has built an authoritarian growth machine. Will it continue to grow at such high speed and overwhelm the West? - Are America’s best days behind it? Are we moving from a virtuous circle in which efforts by elites to aggrandize power are resisted to a vicious one that enriches and empowers a small minority? - What is the most effective way to help move billions of people from the rut of poverty to prosperity? More philanthropy from the wealthy nations of the West? Or learning the hard-won lessons of Acemoglu and Robinson’s breakthrough ideas on the interplay between inclusive political and economic institutions? Why Nations Fail will change the way you look at—and understand—the world.